Tomb Raider - Taking Flight
by LaraCroftTR65
Summary: One of Lara's first adventures in a deadly Mayan temple in South America, searching for the mysterious Quetzal statuette.


'Oh bloody hell,' Lara groaned.

The floor shook beneath her and the roof began to collapse, dust and small pieces of rock crumbling and falling to the ground.

'Every time. This is becoming a bit of a cliché,' she sighed.

The door she had entered the room through slammed shut behind her when she had lifted the Quetzal statuette. It was a gorgeous jade artefact, with obsidian black eyes that stood out from the uniform green of the rest of the bird statue.

'But this is no time to stop and admire it,' Lara thought. She reached behind her and put the artefact in her trademark brown backpack.

She glanced around quickly, looking for another escape from the tomb. A tiny trap door opened in the wall to her left.

'Well there's a trap if I ever saw one,' she smiled to herself. She looked around again but saw no other options for escape.

'Better take my chances then.'

Lara launched herself into the tiny alcove just as the roof collapsed in on the tomb. She was immersed into complete darkness, unable to even see her own hand in front of her face. Good thing she always carried flares.

The familiar red light brightened up the dark hall. Lara's eyes took a second to adjust to the sudden brightness again. When they did, she noticed a drawing on the wall. Lara went over to inspect it. She held the flare up to light the painting.

The symbol was in ancient Mayan, but she recognised it well. It was the Mayan symbol for death.

'Oh good,' she said, in almost complete seriousness. 'It's never any fun tomb raiding without a good death trap.'

Lara followed the dark corridor down further, hoping that it would lead her out of the tomb. There was no going back the way she had came anyway.  
The walls were covered in painted prophecies and curses, calling death on anyone who stole from the tomb.

But Lara took no notice. She had been cursed many times before and still nothing had come of it. She wasn't holding her breath, waiting for a swarm of locusts to invade Croft Manor or for the ghost of a dead Mayan to appear in her bedroom, poised and ready to kill her. Because through her experience, she had found that, while mysterious stories of powerful artefacts and magical guardians that protected them usually turned out to be true, curses and hexes crudely scratched into a rock outside a tomb were usually not.

But still Lara tread carefully because, while the curses may not be a deterrent for her, the death symbol at the start of the corridor was probably more of a warning than a curse. It was telling her that there was something in this hall that could easily kill her if she wasn't on her guard. And she wasn't about to let that happen.

Lara continued down the corridor until she could see light breaking through the darkness, just in front of her. She stopped just before the light met the darkness of the tunnel.

'Hmmm. The hall didn't have anything dangerous,' she thought. This worried her. Whenever a tomb promised a death trap, it always delivered. And if the hallway hadn't contained anything life-threatening, then the next room must be where the death trap lurked.

'But I can't stay here forever,' she shrugged. Lara threw her flare into the room in front of her. She watched it patiently for a minute; maybe two before deciding that nothing was coming to attack it. Her only concern now was that the trap may be weight-activated and the light weight of the flare would not be enough to set it off. The Mayans who built this place wouldn't want a rat to set off their trap and leave the tomb unprotected. No, they would have built a trap that was specifically designed for human trespassers.

Cautiously, Lara stepped into the room. She had just passed where her flare had landed in the middle of the room when the floor gave out beneath her.  
'Oh!' Lara gasped as she tried to grab something to stop herself from falling. But nothing was close enough and she fell down the hole. She landed feet first on a ramp and began sliding uncontrollably downwards. Lara fought to stay upright, arms outstretched as she hurtled down the slope.

She skidded to a halt at the bottom, taking a few steps forward to stop herself from tumbling. She was at another cave exit. There was a large rock partially blocking the exit, but past it, Lara could see an extensive, wide open area of green, surrounded by huge cliff faces. Around the grass were several trees and shrubs, dotted around in quite a symmetrical pattern.  
Lara scaled the rock blocking the exit, and stood admiring the jungle area. From here, she could see a waterfall cascading down the cliffs over in far right hand corner.

There was no escape that she could see from here. She hopped down to go exploring.

As soon as her feet touched the ground, a shriek rang out to her left. Lara whipped out her pistols and aimed them at the noise. A velociraptor launched itself out from the shrubs and ran at her. She dived to her right whilst shooting the dinosaur. It collapsed exactly where she had been standing ten seconds ago.

Two more shrieks and two more velociraptors appeared just in front of her. Lara launched herself into a back somersault to put some distance between her attackers and herself without opening her back to an assault. She shot continuously as she back flipped across the grass until both dinosaurs had stopped advancing.

Lara stopped and breathed a sigh of relief.  
'This must be the death trap,' she thought, almost amused. In her line of work, she had come across dinosaurs before. Quite a lot, actually. For an animal that was meant to be extinct, she managed to run into them regularly.

She holstered her guns and walked three steps forward before a group of four velociraptors ran around the corner, shrieking.

Lara pulled out her guns again and sank into a defensive position, ready to defend herself. But the dinosaurs didn't seem to be preparing for an attack. Instead they seemed to be running from something; not paying a blind bit of attention to her.

'What is going on?' Lara thought, confused.

The next thing that Lara saw didn't make any sense. She saw a velociraptor fly across the grassy area and slam into the cliff face to her right.

She watched, puzzled, trying to figure out what she had just witnessed. She didn't have to wait long to get her answer.

A Tyrannosaurus rex stomped around the corner, and flung another velociraptor that had been clinging to its side across the open area.  
Lara's mouth dropped open. She lowered her guns and span on her heels, running just ahead of the velociraptors that had ran at her a minute ago. The T-Rex caught up quickly, taking only a few steps before it was almost level with them.

It roared and lowered its head, snapping at Lara. She ducked and rolled to her right just in the nick of time. One of the velociraptors shrieked and charged at her, suddenly no longer worried about being attacked itself.  
She was forced to shoot it and it collapsed and skidded towards her. Lara somersaulted over the dead dinosaur and rolled to face the T-Rex.  
There was just her and it left now. The other few dinosaurs had either escaped or been tossed into the cliff face.

She raised her guns and held her ground. Now that the velociraptors weren't here, she had more room to manoeuvre. Besides, there was no escape from the area that way. She would have to face it.

Lara stared at it determinedly. The T-Rex reared its head and let out an ear splitting roar.

Lara's eyes narrowed and she scowled at the dinosaur. It stomped towards her and she pulled the triggers on both her pistols simultaneously.

The bullets pierced its skin, just below its left shoulder, but it wasn't phased.  
Awkwardly it turned and charged at her again. Lara dodged to her left, shooting the dinosaur.

For the next few minutes, they repeated the pattern; the T-Rex charging, Lara dodging and shooting.

Eventually, she managed to shoot it in the eye as it looked back at her and it ran head first into the side of a smaller temple, higher up on the cliff. The archway in front of it collapsed on the T-Rex. It struggled but the weight was too much for the giant beast. It stopped thrashing and Lara breathed a sigh of relief.

Luckily, the dinosaur helped to create an escape route for her. She clambered up some of the large pieces of debris from the archway and now she could leave the tomb with her treasure.

Just before she walked out into the next temple, she paused and surveyed the destruction and trail of dead dinosaurs.

Lara rolled her eyes and sighed. 'I've had enough of dinosaurs,' she said. 'I really think it's high time I get back to Croft Manor.'

As she walked through the door and executed a perfect swan dive into the pool below her, a thought struck her.

Going home meant that she could relax with a nice cup of tea.  
She smiled to herself. She couldn't wait to get home.


End file.
